A majority of members of a special parliamentary committee have recommended that people whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness should not be eligible for medical assistance in dying (MAID). The long-awaited report, released Wednesday by the 17-member joint House of Commons and Senate committee, urges the federal government not to expand access to the procedure.
Report Highlights Risks and Divisions
Over the course of the group's work, the committee heard about significant complexities and risks, grave concerns and deep divisions that continue to accompany this issue. The report states that while the committee considered a range of avenues for how the government could proceed, it ultimately settled on a single recommendation: that the government amend the Criminal Code to indefinitely exclude persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness from eligibility for MAID.
Dissenting Opinions Filed
The committee's recommendation was not unanimous. Three senators, as well as the Bloc Québécois, filed dissenting opinions urging a referral to the Supreme Court. Under current law, patients living with mental illness will be able to start applying for the procedure next March, unless the government introduces and passes a new law to change the timeline.
MAID Legal Since 2016
The release of Wednesday's report falls exactly a decade after MAID first became legal in Canada on June 17, 2016, for patients whose deaths were deemed to be reasonably foreseeable. The law was updated in 2021 and extended to patients with incurable conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, after a court challenge in the Superior Court of Quebec.
Timeline Extended Twice
At that time, Ottawa determined that patients whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness would not immediately be eligible, and a two-year temporary exclusion was put in place to allow more time to study MAID delivery in this area. Since then, the federal government has moved the implementation timeline twice.
